Career Development Process

Assess, Explore, Develop & Implement Your Plan

Who Am I?

The
career exploration process begins with you. You may be wondering, where exactly
am I in the process? If I don’t know where I am, how do I proceed? Or, I know
where I want to go but how do I get there?

Below are areas you need to consider during your career
exploration process. Read
through the information, then complete this exercise: Exercise 1 [pdf]
. We recommend you set up an
appointment with a CDO staff member to discuss your findings.

Interests

Have you ever gotten so immersed in an activity that you lost
track of time? Think about your classes, activities, volunteer experiences,
projects, internships, or pastimes. Recognizing your interests will give
direction to your exploration and research. Here are several ways to discover
your interests:

Chat with professors, family, friends of your family, and alumni
about their careers. This is what networking is all about.

Take interest
and personality assessments.

Conduct an informational
interview with someone in an industry you think you might be interested
in.

Do an internship! You may find your niche and if not, remember
that finding out what you don’t like
is just as important as finding out what you do like.

Values

Where
do your priorities lie? Consider both intrinsic and extrinsic values: Intrinsic
values pertain to the actual tasks involved in the work itself (e.g. I want my
work to primarily be about helping people), and extrinsic values are byproducts
of a particular work (e.g. I want to be able to earn a lot of money).

Skills

Skills
are the foundation most employers seek. Most students concentrate on just the
job-related skills, like writing code or editing video. However, employers are
also looking for self-management skills (are you reliable, tactful, punctual,
assertive, etc.?) and transferable skills (acquired in different contexts but relevant
and applicable to what you want to do in your new job). The CDO can help you
identify the skills you have acquired through various activities such as
internships, student organizations, volunteer work, class projects, sports,
hobbies, and study abroad, just to name some.

Personality

You can
do any type of work, with any type of personality. Sort of. Understanding your
unique traits can help you think about how your personality might influence
your job search behavior, your career choices, your work behavior, and your
general happiness on the job.

Life Circumstances

Your
unique life circumstances might involve people whose lives would also be
impacted by your career development and decisions. Your unique financial
circumstances may also affect how you feel about certain careers. We strongly
encourage you to bring this up as you work with your counselor because we
recognize that your unique set of circumstances might be just as important to
consider as you move forward in your career planning.

Make a
Plan of Action

On
one page, write down three things that fit into each of the above categories
(three interests, three values, three skills, etc.). Now pull out another piece
of paper or create a new document and write down your current age on the top
left side of the page. On the right side, write where you are in life (e.g.,
first year at Pomona College with undeclared major). Down the left side of the
page, write your age every five years until retirement. Down the right side,
write where you want to be at that age career-wise, location-wise, etc. keeping
your first piece of paper in mind. What do you want to have accomplished by the
time you retire? Where do you want to be personally and financially? Now, what
do you need to do to get there?